It is good to dress in fair clothes to dine with friends. It honors your host, if you are a guest; and your guest if you are a host. And both adorn the feast, and so celebrate the gifts of the world.

At these times, the things that troubled her seemed far away and unimportant: all that mattered was the hum of the bees and the chirp of birdsong, the way the sun gleamed on the edge of a blue wildflower, the distant bleat and clink of grazing goats.

There is no shame in not knowing something. The shame is in not being willing to learn.

I shall never complain of the tedium of the city again.

While the heart beats, hope lingers.

It is only the darkness in our own hearts that will defeat us, in the end.

There is no shame in loving: it is the sign of a generous heart, and pain the price of an open soul.